This invention relates to an automated grinding system and method. More specifically, this invention relates to automated grinding using the combination of a tracking sensor to locate the edge and a high resolution sensor to locate the regions of that edge which require reshaping by grinding.
Many metal fabrication processes require heavy grinding (e.g., arc-welding) and/or deburring (e.g., milled or turned parts) to reach a final part shape. Much of the work is presently done manually with hand-held grinding tools. The use of force-controlled or path-controlled robots has been proposed for such tasks.
Various robotic grinding and deburring techniques have been used. However, such techniques have often had one or more of several disadvantages. The speed of grinding and deburring operations has been lower than desirable, thereby limiting the productivity of such techniques. Additionally, such techniques have often been unable to satisfactorily detect and remove burrs, nicks, or other small variations from desired shape. Robotic grinding techniques often have maintained a grinder upon a preprogrammed path and, therefore, provide for little flexibility in adapting the grinding operation to the particular workpiece based upon the characteristics of the workpiece.